Gstar Got Canclled for H1N1?! Korean MMOs Were Asked to Shut up

12,000 H1N1 victims have been found in South Korea till now. And as a result of this, game related events have been cancelled in succession.

Certain offline game-related events have been cancelled due to H1N1.

First, the Sudden Attack Contest 2009 to be held in Kangwon-do, South Korea between Oct. 5 and Oct. 27 has been cancelled. As an offline event to make its appearance for the second time this year, this Contest has a great participant community composed of not only common players and students but also active-duty servicemen (with the help of ROK Army). Though having reached a great success last year, the Contest is not likely to be held this year since H1N1 has made servicemen and students unable to take part.

The KAIST Contest 2009 originally to be run from Sept. 18 to Sept. 19 was also cancelled just because a student was confirmedly diagnosed with H1N1 on Sept. 16. During the Contest, students from two universities compete with each other by participating in game (i.e. Starcraft) related events. The Contest, which is held at this time of the year, however, was called off this year because of H1N1.

Whether G-Star 2009 will be held or not is still a mystery.

The current situation has made the insiders worry about whether G-Star 2009 will be held in Busan, South Korea in Nov.

G-Star 2009 was originally scheduled to grandly land on Busan for the first time, with great Korean game companies attending like NcSoft, Nexon and NHN and strong support given by the city of Busan. However, whether it will be held as scheduled has become a mystery due to the current circumstances.

According to a potential participant of G-Star from some game company, their company was considering whether to participate in G-Star 2009 and the worst thing was that they gave up the participation. Some other game companies have also expressed that they may not attend G-Star 2009 if the situation gets worse.

Meanwhile, the host of G-Star 2009 - Korea Culture & Content Agency said that they would guard against H1N1 during G-Star 2009 by taking various actions, like introducing the heat detecting system and the automatic hand disinfectant injection system.